Center for Advanced Study
MillerComm2018

CONVERGENCE: Spirituals from the Shtetl. Davening from the Delta

Anthony Russell
Vocalist, composer and arranger

CONVERGENCE is a new repertoire of works exploring exile, spirituality, hope and redemption. Combining diverse strains of traditional Ashkenazi Jewish and African American music, CONVERGENCE stands directly at spiritual, historical and textual crossroads. The musical sources are diverse: Chassidic piyyutim, negro spirituals, Yiddish labor union songs, Civil Rights anthems, Israeli folksong and traditional Ashkenazi synagogue music. The musical idioms are diverse as well, bearing elements of contemporary classical, jazz, blues, gospel, klezmer, chazzanut and experimental music.

Mr. Russell is accompanied by pianist Rachel Jensen.

Hosted by:
Program in Jewish Culture and Society

In conjunction with:

Department of African American Studies
Department of Germanic Languages and Literatures
Department of History
Department of Religion
Illinois Program for Research in the Humanities
Robert E. Brown Center for World Music
Russian, East European, and Eurasian Center
School of Literatures, Cultures and Linguistics
School of Music
Spurlock Museum

Series support provided by:
Office of the Chancellor
Office of Diversity, Equity, and Access
Office of the Provost and Vice Chancellor for Academic Affairs
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Research
Office of the Vice Chancellor for Student Affairs
Center for Advanced Study
George A. Miller Endowment
Ledyard R. Tucker Fund
Peggy Harris Memorial Fund
The Council of Deans
The David Gottlieb Memorial Foundation
The Graduate College

For more information, please consult http://cas.illinois.edu or call 217-333-6729

Love the music you’ve heard at the festival? Love the workshops, dances, storytelling, singalongs, and family programming? Help make it happen! Join us for the first organizational meeting for the 10th Annual C-U Folk & Roots Festival.

Have a concrete voice in creating the area’s most magical and intimate music festival. While you’re giving back, you’ll be making new friends who are all about the best in community-building. Need to build your resume? Grow your employable skill set with hands-on experience in fundraising, marketing and communication, project management, web support, volunteer coordination, or whatever strikes your fancy.

Can’t make the meeting, but still want to be involved? Email us at volunteering@folkandroots.org.

As part of the center’s programming, the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music offers community members the opportunity to learn and play traditional Balinese Gamelan music under the direction of I Ketut Gede Asnawa, a master gamelan musician and composer at the University of Illinois. A gamelan is an orchestra consisting mainly of keyed metallophones, gongs, and drums, often functioning as accompaniment to dance, dramas, and other Balinese performance arts.

Our Monday evening classes run from 6pm to 8pm in Room 0300 at the School of Music, 1114 W. Nevada Street. Community gamelan is open to all, free of charge, with no prior experience required. No credit is offered. There is no need for registration, but participants who join the ensemble should understand that regular attendance is expected in order to enjoy making music in an orchestra dependent upon the contribution of every player. Community Gamelan members will be asked to perform at our end of semester concert on Sunday, May 6, 2pm.

The Robert E. Brown Center for World Music invites campus and community members to discover the ecstatic music of the Indian Himalayas through a performance lecture by renowned singer, drummer, healer, and recording artist Pritam Bhartwan and Stefan Fiol, an ethnomusicologist at the University of Cincinnati who has spent the last decade studying these musical traditions. Their performance will combine ornate vocals with dense, interlocking patterns performed on a variety of indigenous percussion and wind instruments. Together they will demonstrate the full range of expressive culture from this Himalayan region, including possession ceremonies, heroic ballads, festival dance-songs, and music for seasonal and life-cycle rituals.

Pritam Bhartwan is among the most widely acclaimed artists in the central Himalayas of North India. Beginning at the age of seven, Pritam began learning the drumming and singing traditions of Garhwal (the western portion of Uttarakhand) by traveling with his father and uncles to possession rituals, epic ballad performances, and local ceremonies and festivals. He soon acquired a reputation as one of the most electrifying performers in the region and went on to record more than 50 commerical albums, in addition to appearing regularly on All India Radio and Doordarshan, India’s state television program. Pritam has received a number of awards from the government of India, including the Sur Samrat, Jagar Samrat, and Uttarakhand Vibhuti. He has also become one of the leading ambassadors of folk music from the Garhwal Himalayas, taking his music and dynamic teaching style to Oman, United Arab Emirates, Germany, New Zealand, Canada, and various parts of the United States.

Stefan Fiol is Associate Professor of Ethnomusicology at the College-Conservatory of Music, University of Cincinnati. He specializes in the music of the Uttarakhand Himalayas of northern India. Stefan received his Ph.D. from the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign in 2008 after conducting several years of ethnomusicological research in the Indian Himalayas. His research has been funded by fellowships from Fulbright Hays, the Wenner Gren Foundation, and the American Institute of Indian Studies. In 2017, Stefan published a book with University of Illinois Press entitled Recasting Folk: Indian Music, Media and Social Mobility; other publications have appeared in Ethnomusicology, Asian Music, Yearbook for Traditional Music, Ethnomusicology Forum, Journal of Asian Studies, and Journal of South Asian Popular Culture.

This lectureship is supported by the Lorado Taft on Art Fund / College of Fine and Applied Arts, programmed as part of the Gateways to World Music Series, presented by the Robert E. Brown Center for World Music.

Steve Gorn leads Improviser Exchange ensemble members in music reflective of his pioneering work in cross-cultural collaborative music, such as the landmark Indian-Jazz fusion recording “Asian Journal”, his 2011 Grammy winning recording “Miho – Journey to the Mountain,” with Dhruba Ghosh and the Paul Winter Consort, and of his gurus, the late bansuri master Sri Gour Goswami, of Kolkata, and Pt. Raghunath Seth of Mumbai, with whom he often accompanied in concert.

A leading "world music" artist, Steve Gorn has performed Indian Classical Music and new American Music on the bansuri bamboo flute, soprano saxophone and clarinet in concerts and festivals throughout the world.

Steve Gorn is a visiting Improvisers Exchange artist-in-residence. Organized by Jason Finkelman, Improvisers Exchange is a Center for Advanced Study initiative deeply investigating the field of music improvisation.

Additional events include:

Hindustani classical music and folk melodies from North India
Steve Gorn (bansuri) and Manpreet Bedi (tabla)
Saturday, February 3, 2018 – 2pm (admission free)
Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory, Urbana

The Transformative Power of Music - A multimedia talk by Steve Gorn
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 – 4pm (admission free)
Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory, Urbana

The Transformative Power of Music - A multimedia talk by Steve Gorn

Far more than entertainment, music is a portal for mind-body synchronization; a conduit for engagement in ritual, group catharsis, and entrainment, and a holder of mythology and history. Often the musician is exalted, but is also seen as liminal, or dangerous to the order of society, which speaks to the power and the Dionysian nature of music. Music pushes boundaries taking people over the edge into ecstasy, trance and possession. In India, Krishna’s flute intoxicates the women of Braj, who leave everything for him; in Haiti, music invokes the ‘crossroads,’ the vertical axis of the link between the visible world and the invisible immortal realm. Speaking from personal experience as an ethnomusicologist, world traveler and performing musician, Steve Gorn explores this role of music worldwide. Supported by images, YouTube excerpts, and Steve’s mastery of the Indian Bansuri flute, the talk invites a wider understanding of the role of music in our lives.

A pioneering artist in cross-cultural collaborative music, Steve Gorn has performed Indian Classical Music and new American Music on the bansuri bamboo flute, soprano saxophone and clarinet in concerts and festivals throughout the world.

Steve Gorn is a visiting Improvisers Exchange artist-in-residence. Organized by Jason Finkelman, Improvisers Exchange is a Center for Advanced Study initiative deeply investigating the field of music improvisation.

Additional events include:

Hindustani classical music and folk melodies from North India
Steve Gorn (bansuri) and Manpreet Bedi (tabla)
Saturday, February 3, 2018 – 2pm (admission free)
Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory, Urbana

Sudden Sound Concert:
Steve Gorn & Improvisers Exchange Ensemble
Thursday, February 8, 2018 - 7:30pm (admission free)
Krannert Art Museum, 500 East Peabody Drive, Champaign

Hindustani classical music and folk melodies from North India will be performed by Steve Gorn (bansuri) and Manpreet Bedi (tabla).

A pioneering artist in cross-cultural collaborative music, Steve Gorn has performed Indian Classical Music and new American Music on the bansuri bamboo flute, soprano saxophone and clarinet in concerts and festivals throughout the world. His gurus are the late bansuri master Sri Gour Goswami, of Kolkata, and Pt. Raghunath Seth of Mumbai, with whom he often accompanied in concert. He also studied with the late Ustad Z. M. Dagar. Gorn’s numerous performances in India include appearing at Bharat Bhavan in Bhopal, Habitat Center and Triveni Hall in New Delhi, Sangeet Research Academy in Kolkata, National Center for the Performing Arts and Nehru Center in Mumbai, and numerous other venues.

Indian classical music is passed from generation to generation, from master to disciple, as a living oral tradition. The music combines the classicism of traditional repertoire, fixed melodic forms, and precise intonation, with improvisation and spontaneous creation. Indian classical music is a meeting of Raga (melody) and Tala (rhythm). Raga means, “to color the mind,” and traditionally, each raga, or melodic landscape, is associated with a time of day, a season or a quality of light. Tala, is rhythm…time, defined and elaborated in rhythmic cycles. Evolved over centuries from music performed in temples and courts, present day Indian classical music is a true 'chamber music.'

Steve Gorn is a visiting Improvisers Exchange artist-in-residence. Organized by Jason Finkelman, Improvisers Exchange is a Center for Advanced Study initiative deeply investigating the field of music improvisation.

Additional events include:

The Transformative Power of Music - A multimedia talk by Steve Gorn
Tuesday, February 6, 2018 – 4pm (admission free)
Spurlock Museum, 600 South Gregory, Urbana

Sudden Sound Concert:
Steve Gorn & Improvisers Exchange Ensemble
Thursday, February 8, 2018 - 7:30pm (admission free)
Krannert Art Museum, 500 East Peabody Drive, Champaign

Inland Calypso is a band of Champaign-Urbana pan music enthusiasts. We'll be playing feel good music, in a feel good space, and if you and yours show up, with some good (looking) people.
Dancing encouraged. Let's get the Iron Post all toasty warm.

Inland Calypso features...
Cody Jensen - Steel Drum (pan!)
Samuel Payne - Guitar
Charlie Harris - Bass
Ricardo Flores - Percussion